This year, we wanted to show how Amazon is there to help our customers share holiday joy with others, by highlight how the thought matters as much as the gift.

“Joy Ride” tells a universal story of three life-long friends who recapture the joy of their youth, sharing brand new memories along the way. It emphasizes how the right thoughtful gift, regardless of size, can unlock the most joyful holiday moments.

Given the scale of the assignment and varying degrees of familiarity with the brand, our film needed to communicate who we are as much as what we offer.

As it is an international spot, all of this needed to be conveyed without dialogue.

The spot is scored to an original instrumental arrangement of "In My Life" by The Beatles – an ode to lasting friendships, and one of the most well-loved songs by on the of the most globally recognized artists.

Led by Amazon XCM, we have been mindful on casting and choice of music for this project. Only 4% of global ads feature women over 65. So, for Amazon’s annual global holiday brand film, we sought to tell a universal story that would breakthrough with global customers (including emerging markets in new countries) by putting a spotlight on this extremely underrepresented group.

The role of our female leads rejects the typical advertising/pop-culture stereotypes of depicting “old people” as feeble, or using their age and abilities as comedic punchline. Instead, we chose portray them as empowered, daring and fun.To ensure nothing was lost in translation across countries and continents. We intentionally crafted the spot without any dialogue.

Instead, we relied on grounded, non-verbal performances and art direction cues to help define the characters over time. We also underscored the emotional arc of the film with an original arrangement of In My Life by The Beatles – an ode to lasting friendships from one of the most globally recognized artists.

Joy Ride helped Amazon achieve it's highest Q4 Holiday sales of all time. Sales increased by 14% from the previous years, resulting in $170 Billion in total sales. Joy Ride was also named as one of the World’s Most Effective Ads by System 1. It earned over 1 Billion Earned Impressions, and $30 Million worth of earned media.